Frederick Wiseman - born 1930 in Boston, Massachusetts - is a world famous director known for creating fantastic documentary films. He has won a stack of awards for his contribution to film making, including a 2006 George Polk Career Award (handed out annually by Long Island University) honouring his journalistic integrity and investigative reporting skills.
His style however, is very different to most. By placing himself inside certain institutions, in a sort of fly on the wall style, Wiseman will spend on average four to six weeks within each establishment filming a huge variety of activities and the general life of his subjects. Some of his earlier works include films such as Hospital, Zoo and Public Housing.
Cinéma vérité, loosely translated means ‘truthful cinema’ is a style of cinema that Wiseman stands by, however he edits his footage in a way that ‘makes it more dramatic’. I enjoyed the film but I’m not sure I’d support the idea that it is at all dramatic.
National Gallery is an informative documentary in the sense that it familiarises its audience with the goings on of one of London’s most famous buildings. Its main focus however seems to be on culture. Shots of the outside of the gallery show people queuing in a very cold Trafalgar Square, as the dull ring of police sirens can be heard in the background. This gives the audience a sense of where the film is based as well as giving the film an indisputable feel of Britishness. The scenes of outside the gallery itself are defining moments within the film purely for this reason.
It’s the art within the gallery however that sucks other cultures into the film. Art works include paintings by famous Dutch painter Van Gogh, as well as the likes of William Stubbs who was, like Wiseman, born in Massachusetts. The galleries visitors descend from across the globe, interlinking British people and tourists alike.
Class seems to also play a large role within National Gallery. Due to the nature of this fairly highbrow gallery, a vast percentage of the staff shown are extremely middle class, and a few tend to look down on the general public, as if they are inferior and know nothing about art. One, rather irritating, man suggested that a marathon should not be allowed to finish in front of the National Gallery because of the disparity between common sport and such fancy art.
Throughout the film we are not expected to know any of the names of, or follow any of the persons in particular, as there are so many different faces shown in such small amounts of time. This seemed odd at first, although after a while it makes the film an easier watch. It additionally makes for a more interesting documentary film than one that follows just a few subjects.
National Gallery was an exciting version of what could potentially have been quite a bland documentary. It takes incredible skill to turn clips of a gallery into a film and make it actually very interesting, without even the aid of a voice over. I will definitely be checking out some more of Frederick Wiseman’s films. He’s brilliant.
National Gallery will be showing at Broadway Cinema on Sunday 11 January 2015 at 12pm.
National Gallery film website
National Gallery website
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